I figured i might as well post a quick review on what i experienced yesterday!

Note that i have played for 4h so far, nothing more and most of it was toying around, reading tooltips and crap.

Know that i have played every single heroes of might and magic all the way through with TONS and tons of hours played and have a wide knowledge of what to do.

Note TL : DR at the end

First few minutes in game :

I found em to be a bit confusing to be honnest, sure its beta and all but basicly, the way you currently play a game against the enemy computer is by creating a hotseat game.
There is currently only one map.
the following is a bit confusing
When creating the game, you then pick your previously created "hero" which defines the race you pick instead of picking the race itself, so basicly instead of picking a race, you pick among the "avatars" you created which are associated with races.

I may be the one not getting whats the use of that but, when you create that hero, you select if he is of blood or of tears (defines some of the abilities you can or cannot get), select if hes might or magic (if you are might you have access to lvl 3 might tech tree and lvl 2 magic tree, vice versa for magic heroes), then pick all the skill that hero has.

So basicly in order to create a game vs AI opponents, you need to create multiple heroes of different factions...
But the thing this apparently does is that the starting hero you have is either of might or of magic, depending on which you created, and has the selected portrait, talents as well as tear and blood reputation are no longer selected. so why select all the talents? tbh i have no fucking clue.

Tears & blood + New skill system
In MMH6 your hero has a reputation meter which evolves as the gme is played, being of blood or of tears gives you access to unique abilities as well as specific talents you cannot obtain without making that choice.

Being of blood and of tears also change the looks of your character, some really looking badass but thats aside from the point.

How do you obtain those blood and tears points ? aside from the arcade university which lets you choose, i have no idea i kept getting tears points and not blood.

As for the skill system, instead of picking from random traits you get when you level up you get a skill point as any rpg and put it in what you'd like. tbh it works quite well, it adds more of a strategic element rather than some luck.

but you level REALLY slowly, after 2h in a game my highest lvl was 8 sooo yeah.

Combat

Yesterday i tried my all time favorite Heaven, pretty much every single unit in game is new and has different abilities, and really none of them really refers to a unit you had in any other heroes.

Basic idea remains the same sure but abilities differ, such as the praetorians fist time ive seen a 1st core unit being so useful, it sheilds unit adjacent to him form ranged attack (reduces dmg taken) absorbs about half the damage that unit takes and if the enemy is attacking your unit which is next to the praetorian, the praetorian will always attack if he is within range.

Basicly, all units have their uses as opposed to some HoMM when you could pretty much count out that puny peasant.

Morale is awarded at the start of the unit's turn, so you know if it will get two actions per turn or only one. with a morale boost you can attack twice and move 1.5x further than you normally could.

luck shot remain the same as in other heroes.

your hero itself gets to act once per turn, a turn is considered to be over once every unit in play has played once. he can attack once per turn or use a spell once per turn and some spells have cooldowns of multiple turns, so you cant spam the same over and over again.

combat feels nice and different from the others but yet, remains the same, odd to explain :P

Also know that if you have multiple castles, you might need to select which unit you want as you prolly wont ahve enough gold (as opposed to previous installements)

Map screen

When you are on the map, the way its played is a bit different.

You only have 3 strategic ressources, wood, iron, blood crystal, which are still generated by mines, which are controlled by a territory (ill ellaborate on that below).
Some said omg only 3 ressources this isnt heroes! tbh its not really a game changing factor, i did not worry much about having those 3 ressources rather than 10, to me its just fine as it is.
The basic idea remains the same, you need ressources for buildings and need to manage it to get what you want, but later on, like any heroes you get 100+ and you build anything at any point so, more of the same!

Territory. in this hero, garrisons and mines are controlled by a territory which is owned by a castle or a fort.
In order to capture a mine, that mine has to either be in your territory or in neutral territory, you cannot capture an enemy mine.
(you can plunder it or sabotage it but i have yet to try that)
Garrisons need to be in your territory in order to be captured.

you can tell who owns a territory as on the map, entreances to a given territory have little obelisks on each side, think of gate towers kind of.
Those obelisk are the colors of the player which owns that territory, so red if you're red, gold if you're gold and white if it's neutral.

A town on map is like any castle, can produce units
A fort on map cannot become a castle and can only produce units off of garrisons in that territory.
Any town or fort can be converted to your race for a fee

The map gameplay feels alot like the old heroes, while being 3d and is not by any means confusing.

Town screen

Town screen there aint much to say about it, its really simplified and thers really now image per say, you see on map screen if you have a castle, fort or whatever, what type of walls it has and what type of town hall is built

Graphics

the graphics and animations are great, not the best you will see ala crysis, but for a heroes game imo its more than enough.

Then again i dont know what type of comp is required i havent really looked that through as my comp well can run crysis on extreme without frame drop so lol.

Bugs encoutered so far

-So far, i have encountered one "game crash" the turn would simply not end
-Some graphical issues where a unit would.. per say dissapear :O
-Some typo
-Some sound bugs
-Vsync caused screen to be wider, which was cured by turning screen to window then fullscreen again... which is weird.. gota do that everytime i start game.

but nothing insanely annoying really

Verdict

it IS a beta so keep that in mind and pros and cons are imo only

Pros :
- All units ARE useful rather than some you have just to have it
- Turns take NO time, just like your old heroes, unlike HoMM V
- Graphics and animations are great
- New skill system adds to strategy and removes some randomness
- All units feel unique and new even if they are called the same as in previous games
- Map screens feels like your old HoMM
- Castle siege is AMAZING, all i gota say haha

Partial :
- Territorial system is a new thing havent really played much but i like it so far
- Combat can be at some points slow paced (units move slowly in general)
- Sound issues makes this be partial, because of the bug, without them it would be up there
- Combat screen feels small and no units can really travel all of it.. so far
- I WOULD have liked more races, but its gona be in expansions

Cons :
- You can actually wonder how some of the bugs ive seen are still there
- Interface BEFORE getting in game is dodgy.. and not really good
- The game Vsync is AWFUL if you do not enable it
- Expansion type model (having more races and whatnot)
- Town screen is ok could be better, you dont see any buildings really

Thank you for taking the time and posting this...I actually saw the pre-order offer (play beta) on steam and was seriously considering picking it up. Sounds like (especially with the new hero system and improved units) they took a few notes from King's Bounty...which imo is a good move.

The beta is only one map though? That kinda sucks...what's the release date?

Beta is indeed only 1 map in hotseat (i have yet to try and figure out how to get my sis to play with me on same comp haha.. as i said interface prior game is dodgy)

The map is fun and HUGE, but indeed only 1 map, but in 2h or something like that, i have yet to finish it.

Oh and btw, AI is much smarter than previous installemnts, on easy he was pretty much able to whitstand my main hero..
AND he calculates exactly how far you can travel, if he is in danger he wont try anything foolish until he can take you on.

Oh another very annoying bug that i have yet to figure out wtf was going on..
3 times in that game, i saw the computer siege neutral heaven castles and fort and i had to wait through the whole autocombat... that was the most annoying bug ive encountered so far :O

if you are intrested i could very well post a summary of unit uses, different skills and all to give you an idea on possibilities and such, i'd be happy to do it.

well the town screen is kind of ... ok i guess all you see is if you have a town hall, captital etc and castle... you dont really see any building made as you did in every single other HoMM :P thats a con that i forgot about haha.

and yeah, big week, end of 3rd quarter + 4th quarter is gona be awsome this year, for me at least haha